Having grown up in Montreal, I knew McGill was a great school. My father had also studied at McGill – he graduated with his Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1959 – and this also helped convince me that McGill was the right place to go.
What I found was that my McGill economics and political science education put me on par with, and even set me forward in comparison to, my peers who graduated from top U.S. schools.”
I had always known that I wanted to be a lawyer; it was just a matter of figuring out how to get there. At the time, I was nervous that going to McGill and then studying law in the U.S. (as I planned to do) would mean that I would be behind. What I found was that my McGill economics and political science education put me on par with, and even set me forward in comparison to, my peers who graduated from top U.S. schools. The observation I made when I got to Penn Law was that I had received an education comparable with the Ivy League universities. I had been intimidated to be studying with classmates who had graduated from top 20 institutions, but came to realize that I was prepared. McGill gave me the education I needed to get into a top U.S. law school and succeed.
As a family, our connections to McGill run deep. In addition to my father being a McGill Engineering grad, my wife is a McGill Medicine grad, as are my father-in-law and two of my sisters-in-law. My other sister-in-law has a degree in psychology. My brother-in-law has a degree in dentistry. Finally, my sister-in-law’s husband is a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, leading the charge of the McGill Interdisciplinary Initiative in Infection and Immunity.
What I would say to today’s students is that by pursuing a McGill education, you get to experience Montreal and get a world-class education that allows you to launch a successful career and/or study at other top schools if that is what you choose to do.